


Bridge To My Own Power

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, Modern Era, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athena discovers feminism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridge To My Own Power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veilchenjaeger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veilchenjaeger/gifts).



> The title is from "The Bridge Poem" by Donna Kate Rushin, in _This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color_.
> 
> Thanks to the #yuletide inhabitant who betaed this! You know who you are. :)

Athena wonders sometimes.

The prophecy Great-Grandmother Gaia spoke was that the second child of Metis, Athena's full brother who never was, would overthrow Zeus, as Zeus did Kronos, as Kronos did Ouranos. Athena can read the pattern of a weaving: Athena's nephew by this brother would have overthrown him, and his son would have done the same. The wars in the realms of the gods would never end. As above, so below: the realms of mortalkind would never know peace nor justice nor liberation.

This is part of why Athena swore that never would a man touch her in a way that might lead to bearing a child. She refuses to take part in that cycle.

Yet the point Athena comes back to, again, again, is that she cannot overthrow her father because she is not, herself, male. Truth of truths: she has no wish to rule Olympos. As well, another revolution in the heavens would stir another revolution on the earth. But compared to her brother who never was, she always comes off second best.

As below, though, so above. She reads Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga; she reads essays on why it is just that artists be paid fairly for their work, why it is unjust that women not be paid for housework and emotional labor; she reads the names of the dead on Transgender Day of Remembrance. She talks to Aphrodite, Thalia, Hestia; to Isis, Coatlicue, Ame-no-Uzume-no-mikoto; to Jessica, Ashley, Emily. She theorizes, protests, writes. She knits for peace, weaves for justice, spins for liberation.

To work within the system for reform is always to be a collaborator. To work against the system for revolution is always to risk harm to the most vulnerable. She will never rule. But soon, no one will.


End file.
